This invention relates generally to the field of sheet feeding, folding and accumulating machines, and more particularly to a unified sheet feeding, folding and accumulating machine in which documents fed successively through the machine from a plurality of input sources can be folded or not folded as may be desired, and accumulated within the machine as discrete collations ready to be inserted into envelopes.
High speed document processing and mailing apparatus have become widely accepted in the automated mailing field, particularly in high volume applications where various documents are handled in connection with the preparation of mail at a high rate of speed. During recent decades, the complexities of modern mailing have increased considerably due both to the complex characteristics of individual mail pieces and the volume and speed at which they must be produced.
In a typical situation involving the preparation of individual mail pieces, such as that generated by mass mailers such as banks, insurance companies, mail order catalog businesses, utility companies, book clubs, etc., to name a few, an individual item of mail might consist of a computer generated invoice for a customer consisting of at least one, possibly two or three pages, a return payment envelope, one or more individual advertising flyers, an information announcement of a change in service or policy, a sweepstake entry, and other documents which make up the half a dozen or more individual items which are found in the mailing envelope. Frequently one or some of these documents require that they be folded in order to fit within the mailing envelope, while others are created in a size that will fit into the envelope. Further, it is possible that one or some of the folded items are small enough to require only bi-folding to fit into the mailing envelope, while others may be sufficiently large to require tri-folding in order to fit into the envelope.
In addition to folding, it is often desirable that the individual items included in the mail piece must be collated in a particular manner so that they are in a desired sequence when removed by the recipient from the mailing envelope. This collating feature requires that various types of sheet feeding and accumulating equipment must be provided to arrange all of the items in the mail piece in the desired sequence.
In a typical installation utilizing heretofore known components to accomplish the foregoing steps in the process of creating a plurality of mail pieces, a computer generates a succession of customer invoices on a web of computer paper, which, in the case of a multiple page invoice, is then fed through slitting, separating and accumulating mechanisms to create a properly arranged invoice. The invoice may then either be fed through a folding machine for appropriate folding if required to fit within a mailing envelope, or it can be fed directly along a conveyor past a series of sheet feeding machines which add various types of folded or unfolded insert material, such as those mentioned above, to the invoices, and then into an accumulating machine that appropriately organizes and aligns all of the material as desired to form the ultimate collation of material to be place in a mailing envelope. The collation is then fed into an inserting machine in which an envelope has been previously transported from a storage position to an inserting position at which the throat of the envelope is held open to receive the collation. After the collation is fully inserted into the envelope, the envelope is ejected from the inserting machine and fed into a mailing machine where the flap of the envelope is closed and sealed, and a postage indicia is applied to the envelope, which is then stacked in a suitable manner for mailing or other processing.
It should be understood that all of the foregoing steps in the mailing process are representative of a typical situation, and that some may be omitted an others added, but that, in any event, all of the steps utilized are carried out at a high rate of speed, typically about 4000 mail pieces per hour. To accomplish this, several individual sheet handling components must be assembled together and mechanically and electrically united into an integral sheet handling apparatus, which can involve five or six individual components. While these systems have achieved considerable commercial success, they still have certain disadvantages, of which considerable space requirement and cost of purchase and maintenance are perhaps the most significant. It is not uncommon for a full mail processing apparatus, from computer to envelope stacker, to run many feet in length and cost as much as 15,000 thousand dollars.
Thus, there is an ongoing need to find procedures and to design equipment to carry them out by which various steps in the overall mail processing system can be combined into a single component, thereby decreasing the space requirement and cost of purchase and operation of the full mail processing apparatus.